The Food Standards Agency said yesterday that legal action was an option if companies refused to co-operate with its inquiries and open their files. A questionnaire about the use of bovine MRM, the quantities used and the products involved is being finalised by officials.

Scientists investigating the links between BSE and its human form, variant Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, are anxious to establish the extent of the use of bovine MRM before its ban from human consumption in 1995.

The use of bovine MRM is singled out by the BSE inquiry report as a “serious flaw” in the Ministry of Agriculture’s precautions to prevent possible BSE-contaminated material entering the food chain. MRM is produced by high pressure applied to a carcass to separate the bones from residual meat and is described in the BSE inquiry report as “slurry” used in lower-grade sausages, burgers and pies.

The agency is to contract a team of researchers to do the work urgently. Officials fear, however, that many companies, particularly small to medium-sized meat processors, will not have kept records on their previous supplies, particularly as there was no legal requirement to do so. One source said yesterday: “We fear that at the end of this we might only have anecdotal evidence, but at least it will provide a picture.”

It is understood that companies are to be sent a questionnaire, which will be followed by interviews. The agency hopes that former employees of the meat companies will also help the inquiry.

The British Meat Manufacturers’ Association (BMMA), which represents about 100 processors, has had talks with the agency about the investigation and says that it is committed to providing all the information it can. It is understood, however, that the BMMA is keen to ensure that names of companies in the inquiry should be confidential.

The Times tried yesterday to find out how much bovine MRM had been used in pies, sausages, burgers or any other product. A spokesman for Bird’s Eye/Walls’, which merged in 1989, said that bovine MRM had been removed from the companies’ products 15 years ago. Asked to identify the products, she declined to do so and said she could give no further information.

A call to Ross Frozen and Chilled Foods in Grimsby was passed to Heinz Foods, which took over the firm three years ago. A spokesman for Heinz said that the company had never used bovine MRM in any product, and he would try to find out about Ross, but doubted that anyone had records.

Northern Foods has never used bovine MRM, a company statement said yesterday. After reviewing the process in the 1970s the company decided not to use it. A spokesman said there had been concerns about bovine material traceability as well as “zero contribution to product texture and concerns about off flavours, taint and adverse impact on shelf life”. She said that the same policy had been followed in any company taken over by the firm. This included, Dalepak, which supplies frozen meat products, and which was acquired in 1998. The spokeswoman said this firm had used bovine MRM in branded products until 1994.

Safeway removed bovine MRM from all its products in 1996. Before then it was used in pies, sausages and burgers,a spokesman said. Waitrose have never sold products containing the material. There was no answer from Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda.

The Consumers’ Association called on the food industry to provide as much information as possible to the investigation. Mona Patel, senior public affairs adviser, said: “This is an area where commercial confidentiality clearly conflicts here with the public interest. No company or trader should seek to hide behind commercial confidentiality because on this issue there is a clear right for the public to know.”

Deirdre Hutton, chairman of the National Consumer Council, said that the use of bovine MRM was of “acute concern” to the public. “Avoiding disclosure of essential information would quite rightly be ill-received by the public and totally unacceptable,” she said.

A YOUTH who lost his willy got a helping hand when doctors grew a new one on his arm.

The extraordinary medical development came after the 16-year-old Russian, known only as Malik, had his most vital organ amputated following an accident.

It was horribly burned after he relieved himself on a live electrical wire and the subsequent damage gave doctors no choice but to lop it off.

Local press reports claim his devastated family got in touch with specialist micro-surgeons who said they could create a new willy for Malik.

They attached an expanding rubber tube to his arm and waited until Malik's skin grew around it.

The procedure took 10 months but, once the tube was the shape of a penis, they carefully extracted it and put it where his old one had been.

Doctors even plumbed his tubing back in so that he could use it to go to the loo and, they hope, even have a full sex life one day.

Once the swelling goes down.